The Animals of the First World War
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by
ral104
moderator, scientist
A sometimes disturbing, always thought-provoking collection of images from the Atlantic, to round off our recent theme of animals at war:
http://www.theatlantic.com/static/infocus/wwi/wwianimals/
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Another perception of World War 1 through the images of all the animals. Extremely interesting but sad photographs. Thanks for the opportunity to view this collection.
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DZM
admin
The photo of the machine gun mounted on the horse kind of blew my mind... I never knew that they did that!
Incredible range of animals here... from horses, dogs, and pigeons to camels, elephants, and even a koala!
This gallery would be a nice companion item for anyone who enjoyed War Horse, too.
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David_Underdown
moderator
Don't forget that there was the Machine Gun Corps (Cavalry). By the end of the war British Cavalry Regiments had a higher proportion of automatic weapons than an infantry battalion too, so despite the comment at the top of the article about the utility of cavalry, a cavalry regiment was still a formidable fighting force, yes headlong charges were less common (though David Kenyon has identified a number throughout the war), but their additional mobility (and don't forget that the tanks of the era moved barely above walking pace, though the Whippett was a little quicker) made them invaluable.
Had the Germans retained mounted cavalry, their Spring Offensive in 1918 might have turned out differently, and as it was the Biriths cavalry were an invaluable mobile reserve.
David Kenyon's book "Horsemen in no man's land" is a very interesting read.
I've seen a photo of an elephant carrying a maching gun too I think!
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David_Underdown
moderator
I see the photo of the Scots Greys is there too - for much of the war their horses were dyed brown! This was to make it harder for the Germans to identify the unit, and for camouflage (the regiment's name actually derives from their uniform when they were raised, but over time they adopted the conceit of only using grey horses - in most cavalry units the trumpeters would ride greys too so that officers could spot them more easily).
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